Thursday, January 03, 2013

The not so slow spiral continues, an interesting dynamic, and I'm not sure about you, but this scares the crap out of me...

So, a new year and time to start cleaning up all of those projects that got put on hold, back burnered, or just needful of some eureka sort of moment.

Yeah, I'm talking about the Buford windvane project...

The design of Buford is pretty much set in stone but the problematic part is that I designed it around a couple of off-the-shelf components so as to avoid folks the hassle factor of having to machine stuff or have it machined. Off the shelf parts also helped me keep the project easier to control the price point and labor goal of less that $200 for materials and two days (16 hours) of DIY labor.

Anyway, just about the time I was ready to release the Buford design I found out that both of the off-the-shelf bits were no longer a catalog item and could no longer be found anywhere. Bummer!

The bottom line is that I have a couple of workarounds in mind but need to do some testing to make sure they work. As soon as I do, rest assured, that Buford will become available.

For those who can't wait, might I suggest Wind-Vane Self-Steering by Bill Belcher which will tell you everything you need to know...